


So What?

by Zooey_Glass



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Wincest - Freeform, pilot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-09-27
Updated: 2008-09-27
Packaged: 2017-10-02 01:14:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zooey_Glass/pseuds/Zooey_Glass
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean living without Sam; but all roads lead back to Stanford.</p><p><em>So showing off hadn't worked out all that well for Sammy at the time. Still, what it gets them now is Dad laughing and talking about Sam without nearly busting a blood vessel, and five minutes where Dean doesn't have to be a man and pretend that he doesn't miss his brother.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	So What?

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the Ani DiFranco song of the same name.

The first few days after Sam leaves for Stanford, Dean feels freer, like a great weight's been lifted off his shoulders. No more bickering over who'd get to sit in the front seat of the car, no more worrying about whether he's got Sam's back when they're hunting, no more sharing too-small hotel rooms -

Dean cuts off the thought before it can even start and tells himself again how great it feels not to be responsible for his brother anymore. He tries not to think about whether he's responsible for the fact that Sam's not around at all.

Dad's impossible to be around, maintaining the burning fury of his last argument with Sam for weeks. Once, Dean tentatively suggests that Sam's better off at Stanford, that he should have a normal life.

'Horseshit,' his father snaps, and launches on a half-hour soliloquy about how 'normal' is a load of crap; Winchesters stick together; Sammy's better off with his family. Of course, he doesn't know the things about Sam that Dean knows. If he did, Dean reckons he'd be singing from a different hymn sheet. Dean doesn't want to think about that, though, so he focuses upon agreeing with Dad until he can almost convince himself that Sam's made them both hurt and angry in the same ways.

~*~

Gradually, they get used to life without Sam. Dean had hoped that Sam's absence would mean that Dad would start taking him on a few more hunting trips, make him part of the team instead of leaving him behind anytime it looks like something real big's blowing up. Dean can understand why Dad wouldn't take Sam on those gigs, but he's a man grown and surely enough of a seasoned hunter, twenty-two years of guns and knives and constant vigilance, ten out in the field. But it seems Dad doesn't see fit to change his ways. Instead he buys himself a bigass truck and gives the keys of the Impala to Dean.

'Seems like there's been a lot of mining accidents out in Somerset County; could be there's some kind of an Anbeg out there. Check it out.' He hands Dean a wad of maps and newspaper clippings and adds, 'Don't make me sorry to have given you that car.'

Dean wants to ask if Dad's going somewhere the car'll be no good, if this is a gift or just the usual Winchester practicality, wants to babble out thanks and promises to take care of the Impala. 'Yes, sir,' is all he actually manages. Just as well that's all his father's looking to hear.

If Sam were there, Dean would have a good time lording it over him with the car. He's been driving it for years but Sam always swore Dad would rather give Dean his right hand than actually give him the car. He thinks about giving Sam a call, or at least sending a card, maybe a picture of the Impala with 'Mine!' scrawled on the back. It's not the same though, and Dean knows it. He spends hours working on the car instead, waxing the paintwork and tending to every rattle and grumble so Dad won't have reason to complain. Maybe one day he'll just rock up at Stanford and take Sam for a drive. In the meantime, he just hits the bars, where the chicks dig the car almost as much as they dig Dean himself.

~*~

Driving back from doing an exorcism near Salem, Dean stops off in some boondock town just out of Boise. It's late October, Halloween decorations choking up every store window he sees. When they were kids, he and Sam used to prank trick-or-treaters, lurking in the bushes making weird howls and rustles and then laughing like hyenas when the most nervous kid spooked and set the others off into a panic. Sam made out that it was some kind of public service, making all the normals just that bit more cautious about things that go bump in the night, but Dean figures it was mostly that they wanted everyone else to feel just a little bit of what their life was like every day. Sam likes to think he's the introspective one, but Dean's a lot better at facing facts. Mostly, anyway.

Heading back out on the interstate, Dean notices the exit for I-80 and remembers that it runs right across to California. He only hesitates for a second before he's switching into the turn lane and heading for Stanford. He tells himself that it's just because of the time of year, that he and Sam should be together. Anyway, why shouldn't he visit his brother? That's what normal people do.

~*~

Dean has no idea where Sam lives, but he figures if he hangs out outside the library long enough his brother's bound to turn up eventually. Of course, he hasn't banked on the fact that a big school like Stanford has a hell of a lot more than one library. He has no idea what courses Sam's doing, either, so no clues there. He drives around the campus for a while before he spots a bookstore squeezed up in between a few different libraries. Dean parks up and waits, ignoring the signs to the parking lot and the dirty looks of passing campus attendants. The gamble pays off - he's only been there about 15 minutes when Sam comes down the road, walking with a couple of other guys. He spots the Impala right off, and for a moment his face lights up, same open smile as Dean remembers from way back when. It only lasts for a second, and then Sam schools his face into casualness and makes some quick comment to the other guys. They nod and smile, and Sam turns off towards the bookstore. He doesn't even look at the car again until they've turned the corner. Then he strides up and rips open the car door and says, 'What?'

Afterwards, Dean thinks about Sam's anger, and the awkwardness, and wonders what the hell he was thinking driving a thousand miles out of his way. Then he remembers the smile on Sam's face when he first saw the car, and thinks he knows exactly what he was doing.

~*~

Dean's been tomcatting around in every town they pass through, so he tells himself he's not surprised when Sam writes to say he's met a girl. Dad comments on the arrival of the letter - the only one Sam's sent apart from the curt 'Got here OK' from the first week at Stanford - and Dean forces a laugh, says he's never known Sam able to resist showing off to his big brother.

Unexpectedly, Dad laughs back and starts to reminisce about the time Sammy caught a hermit crab and brought it back to show Dean. They'd been out in Connecticut, enjoying a rare week of peace. Dad had heard rumours that there might be a melusine haunting the water there, but when they got there they found nothing but wide, empty beaches. Dad had been eager to move on, and it wasn't really beach weather anyway - winter had already moved in enough to drive off the holidayers - but Sam had loved the sea so much that they'd ended up staying a spell. Dean remembers chubby, five year-old Sam marching up to him, full of glee at having found the nicest shell... right before the crab reached out and nipped him on the finger. Dad hadn't laughed at the time, Dean remembers. _Dean_ had laughed, because Sammy's face had been so comical, mingled shock and outrage replacing his showing-off face, and then Sam had started to cry and Dad had whacked Dean upside the head and started in with the Bactine and bandaids and the exhortations to be a man, not to cry. So showing off hadn't worked out all that well for Sammy at the time. Still, what it gets them now is Dad laughing and talking about Sam without nearly busting a blood vessel, and five minutes where Dean doesn't have to _be a man_ and pretend that he doesn't miss his brother.

That evening, after a couple of beers, Dean wonders again exactly what Sam's showing off about in that letter.

He pushes the question to the back of his mind and signals the waitress for another beer.

~*~

_Dad hasn't come back_. It's been almost three weeks and Dad hasn't come back, and Dean knows in his bones that something bad's going down. This is why he wishes like hell that Dad didn't insist on going alone, that they could be a team and Dean could watch his fucking back. Even before he gets the voicemail, Dean knows that this is something too big to handle solo. He needs Sam, and not just because whatever's big enough to hurt Dad is going to be a match for Dean on his own. He needs Sam because with Dad gone, he needs not to be alone.

Sam's not alone, though, and Dean's not sure he's going to be all that ready to step into the shoes of the only other person Dean has.

The hell with it. Dean gets in the car and makes the day's drive to Stanford.

~*~

The house is dark and quiet when Dean gets there. It's a nice little apartment block, a proper house like the kind Dean's never lived in, not since -

Dean gives in for one second and rests his head against the steering wheel. He's not crying. He's just - collecting his thoughts.

Then he summons up all his insouciance and walks into the house.


End file.
